California man arrested after allegedly sextorting over 350 women

FBI: “They were crying…both then showed their breasts to [suspect] on Skype."

Any longtime reader of Ars will know that for years now we’ve seen case after case of what’s come to be known as “sextortion.”

It’s a familiar script: boy chats up girl (or sometimes boy) online, hacks her or his e-mail, asks for or steals nude photos, and threatens the victim with the possibility of publicizing those photos, before eventually getting caught. In recent years, we’ve brought you these sordid tales from Mississippi, California, Michigan, and New Hampshire. They’re all quite disturbing.

On Tuesday, yet another man from the Golden State was caught—Karen “Gary” Kazaryan, 27, who was arrested by the FBI. The Glendale man was indicted (PDF) last week on 30 total counts of “Extortion, Threatening Letters, False Personation, Identity Theft, and Contact by Electronic Communication with Intent to Annoy,” as well as “knowingly and without lawful authority [possessing and using the] identification of other persons.”

Specifically the indictment charges him with gaining unauthorized access to e-mail, Skype, and Facebook accounts of over 100 victims in California alone, and 250 more from other states.

A statement released today by the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California says Kazaryan faces a “statutory maximum penalty of 105 years in federal prison,” if convicted on all counts.

At least three victims are now "fearful" of the Internet

Special Agent Tanith Rogers of the FBI—who has a long history of dealing with such sextortion cases—wrote the search warrant, which provides many horrifying details of the suspect’s modus operandi.

In one such occasion, as described in the 40-page search warrant from 2011 (PDF)—unsealed for the first time on Tuesday—the suspect logged in fraudulently as user “L.A.” and sent an instant message on Facebook to her friend, “A.M.”

On this November 2010 evening, the faux L.A. asked A.M. to Skype chat with him, but after a while A.M. realized that this L.A. was not her actual friend. A.M. called L.A. by phone, who confirmed that she was not on Skype, and when A.M. confronted the suspect via Skype chat, he told A.M. that he had a topless photo of A.M.’s sister D.M. and another friend, M.O.

The search warrant describes this photo as showing D.M. and M.O. topless in a hot tub, “wearing thong-type underwear that exposed their buttocks.”

The suspect then apparently changed the Skype profile image to show that he actually had the photo and demanded that A.M. and D.M. take off their tops and show him their breasts or he would post the photo on their Facebook walls. He gave them 10 seconds to comply.

When they did not, the suspect logged onto L.A.’s Facebook account, posted the photo, and alerted A.M. that he had done so.

“A.M. and D.M. were scared and felt threatened by the unknown subject,” the warrant continues. “They were crying and both then showed their breasts to the unknown person on Skype. The unknown person said they did not show them for a long enough period of time and demanded that they do it again. The girls complied to his demand and he took the link to the photos off of their Facebook pages. The victim then logged immediately off of Skype.”

As a result of their experience, Agent Rogers wrote that L.A., A.M., and M.O. have all shut down their Facebook accounts, changed their e-mail addresses, and “are fearful of using the Internet and computers.”

Good! I hope this a-hole gets some time in prison for being an exploitative jerk. Heaven help anyone I catch doing this to my daughter. Oh yes, they will know the meaning of true vigilante justice.

I don't know about vigilante justice, but certainly some informal negative reinforcement by the girls' male relatives, in addition to the jail time, seems to be in order.

I hope you also warn your daughter (again) that any picture of her could wind up anywhere. If she doesn't want it on the Ars Technica home page, she doesn't want it anywhere - and almost no place is safe from getting your picture taken any more.

I'm certainly going to remind my own daughter.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, tell her that if she doesn't want you to see it, she doesn't want a picture taken. If it's in any electronic form whatsoever it can be saved and copied.

Good! I hope this a-hole gets some time in prison for being an exploitative jerk. Heaven help anyone I catch doing this to my daughter. Oh yes, they will know the meaning of true vigilante justice.

I don't know about vigilante justice, but certainly some informal negative reinforcement by the girls' male relatives, in addition to the jail time, seems to be in order.

I hope you also warn your daughter (again) that any picture of her could wind up anywhere. If she doesn't want it on the Ars Technica home page, she doesn't want it anywhere - and almost no place is safe from getting your picture taken any more.

I'm certainly going to remind my own daughter.

I always tell everyone to handle Internet like you would medicine. Just the right amount in right circumstances could prove a huge boon. Too much or too little at wrong times could be harmful.

I didn't see it mentioned in the article or links but how did he gain access to the accounts? Social engineering? Password recovery functions? Really weak passwords? Or through actual exploits in the services?

I would guess that most likely it was through the victims own lax security practices and this should serve as a lesson to others to use unique passwords and to use false information for password recovery questions.

Kazaryan faces a “statutory maximum penalty of 105 years in federal prison,” if convicted on all counts.

While I have absolutely no sympathy for this moron, i can't help but wonder what the odds of this happening actually are. In a time where the overzealous behavior of the DoJ is being debated - sparked by the Swartz case - this case should be brought into the debate as well.

The guy is an idiot. Sure. But unless he finds the Fountain of Youth before being imprisoned, 105 years is a life sentence. Is it just me, or does that seem somewhat ... over the top?

Kazaryan faces a “statutory maximum penalty of 105 years in federal prison,” if convicted on all counts.

While I have absolutely no sympathy for this moron, i can't help but wonder what the odds of this happening actually are. In a time where the overzealous behavior of the DoJ is being debated - sparked by the Swartz case - this case should be brought into the debate as well.

The guy is an idiot. Sure. But unless he finds the Fountain of Youth before being imprisoned, 105 years is a life sentence. Is it just me, or does that seem somewhat ... over the top?

- Jesper

I am also concerned. Giving him 105 years is saying that he essentially has no chance at rehabilitation. I don't believe this is true. His actions deserve punishment, and rehabilitation, but I believe such an improvement to be possible.

Linearly stacking sentenced time like this is... irrational, I think. He has developed behaviors and ethics that are wrong, but can likely be corrected. But since we didn't catch him until he had repeated the behavior several times, we are saying that the length of rehabilition is longer. Do we really believe that?

Is the number of times you repeat a behavior linearly correlated to the time it will take to change that behavior? I don't think anyone actually thinks this, but this is the line of reasoning our justice system uses to determine punishment.

I think this is wrong. We have a better understanding of psychology than this.

Obviously people who do these things are completely reprehensible, but I also always wonder why people seem to go along with it. People are pretty forgiving about stuff like having your account hacked or webcam taken over by someone, even if it is really embarrassing.

I am also concerned. Giving him 105 years is saying that he essentially has no chance at rehabilitation. I don't believe this is true. His actions deserve punishment, and rehabilitation, but I believe such an improvement to be possible.

I would think like the Aaron Swartz case it's "maximum" xx years. Just because he does get convicted I highly doubt he's going to get slapped with 105 years.

Then again, I do recall reading that sex offenders have a higher chance of recidivism and with how many victims he's left behind it's tough to think he could be out in a few years to potentially re-offend or do something worse :| So a couple of years for making the lives of 350+ people miserable I think is warranted, no?

I am also concerned. Giving him 105 years is saying that he essentially has no chance at rehabilitation. I don't believe this is true. His actions deserve punishment, and rehabilitation, but I believe such an improvement to be possible.

I would think like the Aaron Swartz case it's "maximum" xx years. Just because he does get convicted I highly doubt he's going to get slapped with 105 years.

Then again, I do recall reading that sex offenders have a higher chance of recidivism and with how many victims he's left behind it's tough to think he could be out in a few years to potentially re-offend or do something worse :| So a couple of years for making the lives of 350+ people miserable I think is warranted, no?

They have a higher chance of recidivism because we, as a society, shun them, and push them to the fringes. Those people are not allowed to get decent jobs (if they can get jobs at all), can't get housing, and do not receive mental health care that they clearly need. It is one more symptom of our completely fucked criminal justice system.

"allegedly sextorting over 350 women""indicted last week on 30 total counts"

Wait a minute ...

"indictment charges him with gaining unauthorized access to e-mail, Skype, and Facebook accounts of over 100 victims in California alone, and 250 more from other states."

Ok, so he accessed 350 peoples accounts, not "sextorted" 350 women. He sextorted some undisclosed number of women, adding up to 30 charges against him. Click bait or is the author just having a rough day?

EDIT: And now I've been downvoted for pointing out a logical error in the article. I think I hear jimmies softly rustling.

So a couple of years for making the lives of 350+ people miserable I think is warranted, no?

Well, perhaps, if you believe in society enforcing punishment as an act of revenge.

However, civilized societies normally use a rehabilitating punishment system, in which the goal is to return the punished citizen back to society as a functional and contributing member. It is not only the civil thing to do, it is the most efficient thing to do. Locking someone up in jail for the rest of their lives puts a very expensive burden on everybody else.

I would suggest that a maximum of 2-3 months in jail, 300 hours of civil service, and a modest fine/compensation to each victim is a much better way of rehabilitating this man.

Kazaryan faces a “statutory maximum penalty of 105 years in federal prison,” if convicted on all counts.

While I have absolutely no sympathy for this moron, i can't help but wonder what the odds of this happening actually are. In a time where the overzealous behavior of the DoJ is being debated - sparked by the Swartz case - this case should be brought into the debate as well.

The guy is an idiot. Sure. But unless he finds the Fountain of Youth before being imprisoned, 105 years is a life sentence. Is it just me, or does that seem somewhat ... over the top?

- Jesper

I am also concerned. Giving him 105 years is saying that he essentially has no chance at rehabilitation. I don't believe this is true. His actions deserve punishment, and rehabilitation, but I believe such an improvement to be possible.

Linearly stacking sentenced time like this is... irrational, I think. He has developed behaviors and ethics that are wrong, but can likely be corrected. But since we didn't catch him until he had repeated the behavior several times, we are saying that the length of rehabilition is longer. Do we really believe that?

Is the number of times you repeat a behavior linearly correlated to the time it will take to change that behavior? I don't think anyone actually thinks this, but this is the line of reasoning our justice system uses to determine punishment.

I think this is wrong. We have a better understanding of psychology than this.

No kidding. 105 years in prison essentially throws him away. Our education system invested ~$8500/year for 12 years into him on top of all of the other taxpayer funding this man's life has received. Putting him in jail for life means we sank a whole bunch of money into an investment and are getting nothing out of it. I'm highly offended by this thought - if I had another $100,000 in government investment in my education, I'd not be fighting for my life to get funding for college to be globally competitive as a computer science major.

The cost of putting him in jail is an additional societal investment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarcera ... tates#Cost We spent $74 billion in corrections in 2007 (2011 spending on higher ed was $170.4 billion by the states - think of what would happen if money was repurposed...), it costs an average of $30,600 per inmate. Assuming this dude would live until 70 in prison, we're going from having tax revenue from him (maybe) to paying an additional $1,315,800 into a derelict. Putting him in for a decade will cost $306,000. It's not cheap - we don't lock them away and forget about them, we pay out the ass to keep people in tiny little boxes, unemployed, as punishment.

I think what this man did equates to rape, but as he may well find out in prison, his ass is partially public property. This money could be better spent. A 1.5 million dollar investment into a hole in a field is not something we should be doing as a society that is hemorrhaging debt.

Then again, I do recall reading that sex offenders have a higher chance of recidivism

I am not sure this guy should qualify as a "sex offender". While his actions were foolish, I think comparing him to child molesters and rapists is misguided. And I am willing to bet his actions were not sexually motivated in the clinical sense.

Then again, I do recall reading that sex offenders have a higher chance of recidivism

I am not sure this guy should qualify as a "sex offender". While his actions were foolish, I think comparing him to child molesters and rapists is misguided. And I am willing to bet his actions were not sexually motivated in the clinical sense.

Edit:Thanks to the downvoters for encouranging me to flex the ol' google muscle a bit. I now understand the legal term of art, and have reduced my ignorance factor by a bit (and thus the total ignorance in the world by an infinitesimal amount). I cheerfully withdraw the above comment.

The 105 years is what the prosecutor will threaten to obtain an easy conviction on lessor charges, which is one of the problems with the system. Judges are supposed to have the power of sentencing, yet the laws are written in such a way as to shift much of this power to the prosecutor.

When faced with even the small chance of a 105 year sentence, you will almost always plead guilty to lessor charges no matter the guilt or circumstances.

That's what the Swartz case finally highlighted. It's just a pity the hundreds of thousands of minorities and poor people had to suffer for decades in this system until finally a white rich guy got the attention of everyone. The reaction in the legal reform community to the Swartz case getting attention was, basically, "What? You didn't know about this before?"

While this guys appears to be scum, at least some readers are noticing some inherent problems in our legal system. Just remember all of this the next time a prosecutor is running for office touting their conviction rate above all else.

So a couple of years for making the lives of 350+ people miserable I think is warranted, no?

Well, perhaps, if you believe in society enforcing punishment as an act of revenge.

However, civilized societies normally use a rehabilitating punishment system, in which the goal is to return the punished citizen back to society as a functional and contributing member. It is not only the civil thing to do, it is the most efficient thing to do. Locking someone up in jail for the rest of their lives puts a very expensive burden on everybody else.

I would suggest that a maximum of 2-3 months in jail, 300 hours of civil service, and a modest fine/compensation to each victim is a much better way of rehabilitating this man.

- Jesper

If the goal is to rehabilitate him, then that could take much longer than 2-3 months. I think something along the lines of five years with compulsory psychiatric counseling and sensitivity training would be better.

I am not sure this guy should qualify as a "sex offender". While his actions were foolish, I think comparing him to child molesters and rapists is misguided.

I have no problem with labeling him a sex offender. He used coercion to get these women to do what he wanted them to do, and it involved obtaining materials that I'm pretty sure he used for his own sexual gratification. The psychological trauma inflicted on these women is probably pretty similar to a rape.

Quote:

I would suggest that a maximum of 2-3 months in jail, 300 hours of civil service, and a modest fine/compensation to each victim is a much better way of rehabilitating this man.

I would suggest that a max 2-3 months in jail is insane. The man attempted to do this to literally hundreds of women. I don't see how basically narrowing it down to hours served in jail for each woman he tried to violate is a just sentence.

Quote:

The 105 years is what the prosecutor will threaten to obtain an easy conviction on lessor charges

That's not what that number means. It's a statistic used for media consumption. It only highlights the scale in which this person committed so many crimes by providing the theoretical maximum sentence if you line them up sequentially. No prosecutor in their right mind would actually try to argue for that length of a sentence, as no jury would agree to that.

It's a shock and awe number, which apparently also has a boomerang effect on a number of people, in which they suddenly believe that people who haven't murdered someone is going to get multiple life sentences in prison.

I didn't see it mentioned in the article or links but how did he gain access to the accounts? Social engineering? Password recovery functions? Really weak passwords? Or through actual exploits in the services?

I would guess that most likely it was through the victims own lax security practices and this should serve as a lesson to others to use unique passwords and to use false information for password recovery questions.

1. Find account of pubescent teen girl2. Try "hellokitty" and "justin" as passwords. 80% success rate.3. For the other 20%, use Census Bureau's most popular boy names for girl's birth year.4. When in, look for topless pics; succeed 50% of the time.

The guy should def be put in jail, but 105 years is quite excessive though. He's a creep, but it's not like he murdered a bunch of children or something.

Also, the line "At least three victims are now "fearful" of the Internet" is making me lol so hard. It's not the internet that they should fear. The internet isn't going to break into their house while the sleep and kidnap them.

They should be fearful of 1. Creeps like this guy2. Their own stupidity for a) talking to strangers online (and probably providing the information that led to their getting hacked) and b) going along with his extortion. Those pics are gonna get out anyway. Once another person has them, that's it. They were probably all over every seedy message board in the world within a day of his getting access to them.

The 105 years is what the prosecutor will threaten to obtain an easy conviction on lessor charges

That's not what that number means. It's a statistic used for media consumption. It only highlights the scale in which this person committed so many crimes by providing the theoretical maximum sentence if you line them up sequentially. No prosecutor in their right mind would actually try to argue for that length of a sentence, as no jury would agree to that.

It's a shock and awe number, which apparently also has a boomerang effect on a number of people, in which they suddenly believe that people who haven't murdered someone is going to get multiple life sentences in prison.

I didn't say the prosecutor would ask a jury for this sentence. He will threaten the accused with it to obtain a plea bargain, making sure the case never goes before a jury. In that respect it is a shock and awe number, but used against the accused. The lack of decent legal representation for poor and minority people simply makes such tactics easier to use.

Just look up the percentage of plea bargains, especially when broken down by racial and economic profiles. A very small percentage of criminal cases in this nation make it before a jury for just this reason.

Then again, I do recall reading that sex offenders have a higher chance of recidivism and with how many victims he's left behind it's tough to think he could be out in a few years to potentially re-offend or do something worse :| So a couple of years for making the lives of 350+ people miserable I think is warranted, no?

I looked this up in the FBI stats a few years ago, and the claim of a higher recidivism rate is wrong. The recidivism rate (i.e arrest for committing the same crime or the same class of crime) is actually lower for persons convicted of a sex offense. However, the re-arrest rate for any crime is higher. However, sex crimes are also under-reported relative to other crimes, so the actual reoffense rate (actual repetition of the same crime vs arrest for the same crime) could be higher than for other offenders.

I am not sure this guy should qualify as a "sex offender". While his actions were foolish, I think comparing him to child molesters and rapists is misguided.

I have no problem with labeling him a sex offender. He used coercion to get these women to do what he wanted them to do, and it involved obtaining materials that I'm pretty sure he used for his own sexual gratification. The psychological trauma inflicted on these women is probably pretty similar to a rape.

Quote:

I would suggest that a maximum of 2-3 months in jail, 300 hours of civil service, and a modest fine/compensation to each victim is a much better way of rehabilitating this man.

I would suggest that a max 2-3 months in jail is insane. The man attempted to do this to literally hundreds of women. I don't see how basically narrowing it down to hours served in jail for each woman he tried to violate is a just sentence.

Quote:

The 105 years is what the prosecutor will threaten to obtain an easy conviction on lessor charges

That's not what that number means. It's a statistic used for media consumption. It only highlights the scale in which this person committed so many crimes by providing the theoretical maximum sentence if you line them up sequentially. No prosecutor in their right mind would actually try to argue for that length of a sentence, as no jury would agree to that.

It's a shock and awe number, which apparently also has a boomerang effect on a number of people, in which they suddenly believe that people who haven't murdered someone is going to get multiple life sentences in prison.

"I have no problem with labeling him a sex offender. He used coercion to get these women to do what he wanted them to do, and it involved obtaining materials that I'm pretty sure he used for his own sexual gratification." - we don't know that.

Not trying to defend him, as he sounds like scum. But he may very well do that just for the sake of enjoying empowering his victims and humiliating them. He doesn't necessarily use the results for his sexual gratification. We just don't know that.

Also, I love now naive people can be when they say things like "no jury would agree to that". Yeah, okay. Because we never hear about outrageous jury decisions.

Then again, I do recall reading that sex offenders have a higher chance of recidivism and with how many victims he's left behind it's tough to think he could be out in a few years to potentially re-offend or do something worse :| So a couple of years for making the lives of 350+ people miserable I think is warranted, no?

I looked this up in the FBI stats a few years ago, and the claim of a higher recidivism rate is wrong. The recidivism rate (i.e arrest for committing the same crime or the same class of crime) is actually lower for persons convicted of a sex offense. However, the re-arrest rate for any crime is higher. However, sex crimes are also under-reported relative to other crimes, so the actual reoffense rate (actual repetition of the same crime vs arrest for the same crime) could be higher than for other offenders.

I often hear people falsely claim that the recidivism rate is higher among sex offenders. The opposite is true according to the statistics.

So a couple of years for making the lives of 350+ people miserable I think is warranted, no?

Well, perhaps, if you believe in society enforcing punishment as an act of revenge.

However, civilized societies normally use a rehabilitating punishment system, in which the goal is to return the punished citizen back to society as a functional and contributing member. It is not only the civil thing to do, it is the most efficient thing to do. Locking someone up in jail for the rest of their lives puts a very expensive burden on everybody else.

I would suggest that a maximum of 2-3 months in jail, 300 hours of civil service, and a modest fine/compensation to each victim is a much better way of rehabilitating this man.

- Jesper

If the goal is to rehabilitate him, then that could take much longer than 2-3 months. I think something along the lines of five years with compulsory psychiatric counseling and sensitivity training would be better.

I agree, this guy needs some impulse control therapy or something along those lines. A potential 105 years sentence doesn't fit the crime at all, what this implies is that perpetrators are better off committing physical crimes and a re certain to to receive a lighter sentence.

There is no excuse for what this man does, and if I can find a way to invent technology to brand him as a sex offender the moment he looks into a screen---I'd give away that technology to the best governments out there.

That said, WHY IN THE WORLD DO WOMEN POST NAKED PICTURES ANYWHERE??? I MEAN REALLY... FLAUNT IT IN YOUR OWN REAL TIME AND IF PICTURES MUST BE TAKEN KEEP THOSE PICTURES OUT OF THE NET. THE NET--WORK-- IT'S GLOBAL AND THERE'S ALWAYS THE RISK FOR THE RISQUE TO BE EXPLOITED.

How many '80s movies featured characters either peeping tom'ing or extorting sexual favors in what were considered "comedies?" Those scenes always creeped me out: many even featured the victims crying and this was supposed to be funny and harmless.